


The Princess of Avengers Tower

by Livvy1800



Series: It's Complicated But That's The Way We Like It [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Bucky and Darcy have a daughter, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Minor Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, WinterShock - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7419346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livvy1800/pseuds/Livvy1800
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Darcy is beyond grateful to be surrounded by superheroes while raising her little girl. And sometimes she wishes SHE had a vibranuim shield to whack people with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess of Avengers Tower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msxylda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msxylda/gifts), [tracinginthesand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracinginthesand/gifts).



> WELP. I said the last fic was the last fic, but then an offhand comment got this ball rolling. So, I'll just say I THINK I'm done? Maybe. Hahaha, oh Lord...
> 
> Thank you to Msxylda and Tracinginthesand for all their encouragement and egging on. You are ze worst, Burr. <3

As much as Darcy loves her Avengers family, sometimes she really wants to murder the lot of them.

"Mama! Mama, look at meeeee!"

Folding her arms over her chest, Darcy squints up at the tree, where her five year old daughter Ainsley and her husband's teammate Clint are hanging upside down from a branch. The archer grins and waves with one hand, while the other hovers protectively behind Ainsley's back, where the little girl can't see it. It makes Darcy feel marginally better that Clint is aware of how dangerous teaching her daughter this little trick is.

Marginally.

"Yes, baby, I see! Good job. Just be careful," she says, pasting a smile on her face to hide the worry. It's a six foot drop. If her little girl falls on her neck... But no. Clint would _never_ let that happen. Proving her right, he suddenly lets go of the branch with his legs and flips down to stand under Ainsley.

"Alright, that's enough for now." Ignoring the child's grumbling, he unhooks her legs and carefully lowers her to the ground, keeping one hand under her arm until she can stand on her own again. The pinching in Darcy's chest eases and she's able to give Clint a real smile this time, if a bit rueful. "Next time Uncle Clint gets to babysit, Annie Pancakes, we'll climb the water tower!"

Annnnd now Darcy's glaring at him again while she marches her protesting daughter away, Clint's snickering ringing in her ears. Honestly, he's _such_ a brat.

But Ainsley adores him to pieces, her daddy's buddy who can juggle six bananas at once and always keeps the best sugar cereals hidden away for her. And even if she doesn't want to admit right at the moment, Darcy loves the tragic doofus as well.

Two days later, she walks into her Tower apartment to the sound of serious female conversation, one voice pitched high and youthful and the other smooth, with just the barest hint of a Slavic accent.

"—it's their most vulnerable spot, which is why you hit hard and fast, and then you run. You run and you don't stop. Do you understand, kotehok?"

Darcy steps into the living room to find Natasha seated on the couch with Ainsley kneeling at the coffee table, drawing something on white paper with fat crayons. Neither look up at her silent entrance, although Darcy would eat her shoes if Natasha didn't know she was home from the moment the front door had slid open.

"Yeah, I think so?" The little girl concentrates on her drawing, the tip of her tongue sticking out as she draws a careful blue line down the page. "But what's vulner-rabble? And why's it hurt to kick a man in his privacy area? And why—"

"Hey you guys!" Darcy interrupts with loud cheer, coming quickly into the room and tossing her workbag onto a nearby chair. She's not sure how she feels about Nat taking it upon herself to give Ainsley self-defense advice. Geez, the kid's only five years old. She's got years ahead of her to learn how awful the world can be. Her childhood should be her _childhood_.

"Mama!" Her daughter jumps up and hugs her, and she just takes a moment to run her hand over the soft, chestnut waves. So like her husband's, but the inquisitive green eyes that shine up at her remind Darcy of her mother's Yiddish "curse".

_May you have ten just like you._

Ha! One was enough, thank you very much. Her daughter is an adorable, sweet, clever... handful. Keeps her parents on their toes, for sure.

Natasha watches them with cool eyes and a slight smile, nodding as Darcy drops down next to her. They sit in silence as Ainsley goes back to her drawing, wiggling her small pajama clad bottom happily as she hums and colors.

Darcy clears her throat, but Natasha speaks first.

"I apologize. It didn't occur to me that you might want to have that conversation with her first, as her mother." The former assassin lifts one shoulder in a smooth shrug, a gesture of concession. "I just... I don't want her to be unprepared. If I'd had someone... someone who taught me these things at a young age... perhaps I would not have been so easily picked up off the street and brought to the Red Room."

Natasha looks at her then, the blue of her eyes burning bright. "At the very least, it could have given me a chance."

Oh. Well, that sort of takes the fire out of anything Darcy can say about respecting boundaries and family privacy and childhood innocence. Dammit. Summoning a smile for the woman who was once one of her husband's closest lovers, and his most dangerous enemy, but is now the sister she's never had, Darcy reaches down and links their fingers together.

"I'm glad she has you," she says, and means it.

Things bump along smoothly for another week or so, until Darcy one day realizes that she can't find Ainsley anywhere. She's not in her room (where she's supposed to be napping), she's not in the Avenger's common room playing video games with Thor, and she's not hanging out in her favorite spot in the rooftop greenhouse with Bruce. Swallowing down impending panic, Darcy takes a deep breath. She can't have gone far, after all. She'd never make it past the lobby desk downstairs.

"JARVIS, do you have eyes on my daughter?"

"Yes , Mrs. Barnes." The AI's answer is smooth and immediate. "She's in lab 207 with Mr. Stark. I do believe he's teaching her the finer points of robotic engineering."

Oh God. Just what she needs.

When she reaches the labs, Darcy can hear AC/DC and her daughter's giggling mixed with Tony's complaints.

"That is not what I said to do _at all_. I asked you to hand me a torx wrench and that is so clearly a ratcheting box wrench." Tony's exasperated voice rises as Ainsley's giggles continue. "Are you trolling me? You're too young to be trolling me already. Did your father teach you that? Or was it that awful Uncle Steve of yours? He's _the worst_."

"Uncle Steve is the best!"

"Ex _cuse_ you, what am I, chopped liver? This offends me. I'm offended. What kind of lab monkey are you, anyway? That's not how you kiss up to your boss."

"Ahem." Darcy leans against the doorframe of the lab, eyebrows raised at her unrepentant daughter, who merely sends her a gap toothed grin from where she's perched next to an array of tools on Tony's work bench.

Startled at the interruption, Tony smacks his head on the casing of the suit he's got his head stuck in. "Son of bi...!" He clears his throat, easing out of the suit and rubbing at the top of his head. "Son of birch tree."

Ainsley cocks her head, eyes bright.

Tony scowls.

Darcy tries not to roll her eyes. As if the little girl hasn't heard worse already. Like it or not, they do live with the most foulmouthed Avenger to ever Avenge. The cussing jar in the kitchen has funded their last three day trips to the zoo.

"What's up, MILF Barnes?"

"Oh God, never call me that again." Darcy pushes off the doorjamb with a horrified laugh. She walks across the room and lifts her daughter into her arms, hitching her onto one hip. The little girl lays her head on her shoulder immediately, trying to hide a monster-sized yawn from her mother. "Just here for my kid, Stark. She was supposed to be napping, but pulled a Houdini. I should have known she'd make her way down here, where you would attempt to corrupt her."

"Hey, I can't help it if I'm fascinating to watch while I work." Tony smirks, twirling a pen in his fingers as he leans back in his chair. "Go ahead and take her. She's a terrible lab assistant anyway."

Ainsley lets out a sleepy giggle against Darcy's shoulder.

"I heard that!" called Tony as they left the lab. "See if you get that raise now!"

Unable to stop the chuckle at the mock offended tone, Darcy steps into the elevator and pushes the button for their apartment's floor. Tony may play at not caring about much besides his Ironman suits and Captain America's perfect ass, but everyone knew he had a soft, Baby Barnes-shaped squishy spot right in the middle of his heart. The sucker.

It was one thing to expect Clint or Tony to get up to no good with her daughter, but quite another when Darcy found Ainsley and Steve in a compromising position one afternoon in Central Park.

"What are you _doing_ , Steven Grant Rogers?"

Steve looks up guiltily, his face red. "It's not... okay. It is. It is totally what it looks like."

Her daughter sits in the middle of Steve's overturned shield, gripping the leather straps tight with both mittened hands, her little knit hat covered in clinging snow. They're at the top of a small hill overlooking the park, the area busy with families and young couples, laughing, screaming, and sledding. With his hat pulled low and puffy winter jacket, no one is giving Steve a second look, even though he's using a historical national treasure as a kid's snow toy.

"Let go, Uncle Steve! Let go, let go, let go, _push_!" chants Ainsley, bouncing with excitement, her cheeks pink from the cold. Steve gives Darcy an apologetic smile, his grip tight on the shield despite his new orders.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Darcy tries not to imagine her little girl flying across the snow, over the paved path, and into the not quite frozen lake. Looking up, she finds two sets of hopeful eyes on her, and throws up her hands in defeat.

"Sure, fine. Go ahead!" Ainsley cheers as she gives exasperated permission. "Just try not to permanently maim my child, Rogers."

" _Never_ ," he vows, then gives the shield a gentle shove. Ainsley shrieks with delight as she spins down the hill, her hat flying off, pigtails whipping out behind her. At the bottom of the hill, it slows to a stop, she rolls off, and turns to look at them. With a big grin on her tiny pink face, she holds up her arms, fingers on both hands stretched into victory signs.

Darcy laughs. "Your work or Tony's?"

"Both?" He sends her sheepish smile tinged with glee, shoving a hank of blond hair out of his eyes. At the bottom of the hill, Ainsley plops both hands on her hips and taps one little boot in the snow, staring at Steve with pointed intent.

"I believe you're being summoned," Darcy says dryly. She calls after him as he sets out in an immediate jog to retrieve the shield and its rider, "You only bring this upon yourself, you know!"

"I know," he calls back, laughter in his voice. Yeah, she knows he does.

In a moment of tipsy, celebratory joy the night Ainsley was born, Steve had touched the delicate, downy head of his best friend's daughter in wonder, his mouth warping into a tremulous smile. "I didn't think I'd live to see Bucky's kids. I didn't think _we_ would live to see _any_ of this. I'm so goddamned grateful to be here right now." His bright eyes, churning with emotions, both broke her heart and soothed it. "Thank you, Darcy. For making him so happy, and me too."

So if she doesn't get mad at him for spoiling her little girl, no one can blame her. _She_ sure as hell isn't going to take away that look of joyous wonder on his face every time Ainsley climbs onto his back and demands a piggy ride.

Carrying home one tired girl later is totally worth it, in her mind.

Juggling her daughter in her arms as she enters their apartment, Darcy makes a beeline for the little girl's bedroom. She lays her down on the mattress, slips off her boots, and manages to get the child into her pajamas without waking her. Triumph! It means she actually gets to take a hot shower before dinner, something she desperately needs after an afternoon playing in the freezing cold. If she's lucky, she'll get redressed and even put on make-up before her daughter wakes up again.

Kids are awesome, but damn, they require a _lot_ of attention.

But as Darcy steps out of her bedroom an hour later, clothed but with wet hair, she can hear noises from Ainsley's room. Darn it. Everything takes longer when little fingers kept stealing lipsticks or having near brushes with a hot curling iron. Moving to her daughter's bedroom, she peeks around the half open door to see if maybe the little girl is distracted enough with her Legos that she won't notice the blow dryer going on.

The sight of two heads bent together, burnished chestnut in the golden light of the lamp left on to drive away the afternoon winter gloom, makes her heart jump a little in her breast. His shining metal arm carefully cuddling his daughter against him, Bucky flips the page of the book she's holding, his deep voice reading a story about how a little boy became a pirate.

Darcy must have made some sound, or maybe not, knowing her husband's constant situational awareness, because he pauses and lifts his head. Dark blue eyes lock with hers, the corners crinkling as he smiles, and warmth eases through her. He holds out one hand, gesturing for her to join them on the bed.

"Daddy's reading a story. It has _sharks_ and _soccer_ ," Ainsley announces as she sits down with them.

"Sounds awesome." She grins, knowing this is a new book. He can never resist buying their daughter books as "souvenirs" from his travels with the team. One whole wall of the girl's room was bookshelves, packed with stories from all over the world.

Bucky's hand slips around Darcy's waist to settle on her hip, leaving her to turn the pages now. They sit like that, together as a little unit, both his girls in Bucky's arms the way he always likes it, until the rest of the book is done.

"That was a good story." The short review is made in a firm voice as the new book is shelved with the others, then their daughter turns to look at them still sitting on the bed, their fingers linked. "I'm hungry now. I want pizza. Can we have pizza? You said last week we would have pizza when Daddy came home."

There's a low huff of laughter behind her, but Darcy just nods in agreement. "I did say that, didn't I? Well, go get the menu and let's decide."

"Aww, pizza, yes!" Ainsley shouts, then runs out of the room on bare feet.

Darcy knows she had about thirty seconds, tops, before their daughter starts yelling for them. Twisting around to face Bucky, she reaches up and lightly runs a finger over the healing cut above his right eyebrow.

"Okay?"

"Yeah." His voice is deep and slow, tired sounding, but calm. "Okay. There were a coupla moments where things got a little dicey, but nothin' we couldn't handle. It's all good, doll."

She accepts this with a nod, knowing he does his job exceptionally well, and also that worrying is useless. Avenging is as much as part of Bucky's life as her and Ainsley are now. One without the other would leave him off balance and incomplete. So she won't ask him to step back, to leave it behind, but only to take care with her heart and her daughter's future.

"Well..." Lightening the mood, Darcy leans in and brushes her lips over his, loving the way he goes still at her touch, even after all these years, his hands fisting in the bedspread. "Let's get some pizza in you. Maybe a family movie after. Put your daughter to bed before 10pm, Thor willing and the creek don't rise."

His mouth flashes into a grin, since they both know the drag down, knock out fight that passes for a bedtime routine around here. No idea where that girl gets her stubbornness from, or none Darcy's going to admit without torture.

Lowering one hand to her husband's thigh, trailing fingers up and down the rock hard muscle under denim, Darcy looks at him from under her eyelashes.

"Then... I think you need a long, hot shower, Agent Barnes." She lets him see her plans for later that evening in the sly smile and come hither eyes she turns in his direction. "If you share your pizza, and ask nicely, maybe I'll even wash your back."

"The pizza is all yours, baby," he says fervently, leaning in to catch her lips with his, his mouth hot and demanding. Making a small sound in the back of her throat, Darcy presses her body to his, communicating just how much she'd missed him during his week long mission.

They're interrupted by a high pitched shriek of horrified delight.

"Ewwww!"

Okay, but she'd been the one pushing to have kids, so. No bitching. With a sigh, Darcy pulls away from him with a herculean effort and stands up.

"Hey, little McJudgy Judgerson, just saying my _own_ helloes to Daddy." She pokes the little girl in the armpit as they make their way out of the bedroom. Ainsley giggles, dancing away from tickling fingers, waving the paper menu at them.

"Pizza!"

"Pizza," confirms Darcy, reaching for it.

"Pizza," says Bucky, coming up behind her and sliding his arms around her waist, nuzzling her neck despite Ainsley's loud pronouncement that his actions are _groooossssss_. "Then movie, and bedtime for the squirt. Then that shower I was promised."

Sounds perfect to Darcy.

With a grin, she picks up the phone to order pizza.

 


End file.
